Country life
Study time
-Leanda de Lisle
The Easter holidays seem ill-named this year. Teenagers are already studying for their summer exams (they may be easier than they were in our day, but they also seem to require a great deal more effort). Meanwhile the tourist season promises to open late despite newspaper advertisements declaring the countryside open for business. It's all work and no play in Market Bosworth.
On the exam front I have one child taking his government Standard Achievement Tests, another facing his school common entrance exam, and a third an early GCSE. The youngest is pretty much left alone which seems to me right and proper
although I know he has many, many contemporaries being force-fed knowledge in the manner described by Andrew Gimson in The Spectator last week. The common entrance candidate is my dyslexic son who I suspect will either do terrifically well (in Ms own, strange, 16th-century English), or lose his nerve and write total gibberish. I can hardly bear to think about it. I pass his little office where he cheerfully spends his morning writing up his notes on Edward I and scribbling away on old maths papers, cross my fingers and hope for the best.
I expect to see some hard graft from the eldest too and have told him to aim for an A in his GCSE, although I secretly think As are rather sinister. I'm not at all sure one should want to give the answer the examiner expects every time — and today's GCSEs give you no room for argument, even on matters of ethics. You just have to do and say what you are jolly well told. To think, I have years of beating my children into hard work to look forward to.
If the inside of the house in silent save for the scratching of nibs on paper, the outside is quieter still. Easter is the beginning of the tourist season, but there are none of the usual coaches thundering down our country lanes. The Bosworth Battlefield visitor centre is closed for April, the spring events and school visits all cancelled because of the foot-and-mouth restrictions.
It has been interesting to discover just how dependent tourism is on farming. Just how many millions do you suppose it is worth to the country to have all those footpaths maintained by farmers? The pointto-points have been cancelled as well, which will cost the hunt a fortune. I don't suppose they can look forward to any financial compensation from the government. But at least the hunt is feeling useful since they have finally been called in to help with the slaughter of sheep and cattle. The Master of Foxhounds Association offered to help the Ministry of Agriculture weeks ago when it became clear they desperately needed as many experienced slaughter men as they could find. However, Maff seemed strangely reluctant to respond. A letter sent by the MFHA on 24 March never received a reply, while a request from one of Maff's contractors for help became muted to the point of complete silence after it was reported in the Daily Telegraph.
The MFHA had to wait for the army to be called in before things changed. Their offer of help was then immediately accepted. Within 24 hours hunt staff were in place and working. Good news of sorts. The silencing of the lambs makes a grim backdrop to Holy Week and a horribly inappropriate one to the Easter weekend. Perhaps we should have rabbit for Easter lunch this year. The Easter bunny has been crying out for a roasting and a stuffing for a very long time and if we can't enjoy a proper holiday this spring something should be made to pay.
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